Do you like Malmö?

I hear that question frequently. What do you think of Sweden? Do you like Malmö?

There is the tendency to talk about the weather first as this is universally the easiest small talk topic.

“Well, you know, we came from California and its sunny there all the time.”

“Yeah, so this is our first winter is 15 years.”

“You know, its ok.”

But all of that is true and completely beside the point. No one asked me what I thought about the weather in Malmö. Everyone, with the exception of one person I met from Northern Ireland, agrees that the weather in Malmö is less than pleasant, especially the long, dark, rainy winters.

But do I like Malmö?

This Sunday, a woman I met after church, awkwardly socializing over cup of post-church coffee, asked me this question. She was older, from a more rural part of Sweden, and she communicated through halting Swinglish that she understood English but did not speak it well.

I stopped, trying to articulate my words simply. I looked into her clear blue eyes in her face framed by wispy blond bangs, and I heard myself say, “I like Sweden.”

She smiled. Satisfied.

And I realized that I believed what I said.

I told her that just yesterday Kip and I had spent the afternoon with a neighbor we met on the street, a very un-Swedish connection. But even so he had invited us over for coffee, and so we sat in his beautifully Scandinavian styled apartment and had coffee and freshly baked, homemade cardamom rolls with his wife and toddler son.  The candles on the table warmed the room and made me forget about the cold Saturday afternoon outside.

And last Friday night, despite the cold snap that brought the temperature well below freezing, Kip and I rode our bicycles across town to meet up with another couple and discuss our lives over imported wine and olives. After a wonderful evening of discovering common hearts in uncommon narratives, we rode our bikes back through town and stopped near Möllevången for midnight falafel from a middle eastern restaurant that keeps very unSwedish business hours. And I kept thinking about how, just a year ago, I could not have even imagined such a night.

The real Malmö … late night kebabs paid with Swedish kroner under a Swedish flag. (Note: This picture is not from Möllevången, but from our neighborhood kebab shack.  These popup stands offer  the best “fast” food in Sweden.)

I like our life and adventure here.

I love that Malmö is an international city, a baby city where you can ride bikes from one end to the other, but a multicultural hub where you can get to know people from around the world who have chosen to make this tip of Sweden their home.

I like the indoor winter culture.

I like the hospitality.

I like the massive bike roads and the fact that we bike everywhere, even in the middle of the night in the cold of winter.

I love the people we have met, the friends who feel like real friends, the kind that I will keep in touch with for a long, long time.

I like the coffee culture, and dangerously so, I like all the freshly baked bread and bakery treats. It’s the best I have had in the world, and there always seems to be opportunities to partake.

Swedish semla and salad, a perfect spontaneous lunch date with my friend Jennifer. Semla is the Swedish response to “fat Tuesday,” a traditionally pre-lent delight that somehow arrives in bakeries early and lingers after the beginning of lent.

I love the tree that grows just outside our balcony. I have watched it change from green, to yellow, then barren, then white with snow and now dripping with freezing rain and the pre-spring promise of budding tips. I like the reality of seasons and the rhythm it brings to people’s lives.

Our tree, exactly five months ago, the last of the green leaves.

Today, no new leaves yet, but tiny rain-dripped buds, birds and a curious cat experiencing his first spring ever.

So yes, sweet lady from Sweden with your careful worded English and your hospitable smile, I like Sweden.